


It's the Bee's Knees, Babe

by casetrippy



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (ambiguous but romantic magcretia & taagnus but platonic taako & lucretia), Aging, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Lucretia POV, Lucretia-centric, Medical Procedures, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Recovery, Repairing Friendships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-01-21 13:52:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casetrippy/pseuds/casetrippy
Summary: Two thirds of "Team Humans" are feeling the hit of actually getting older, and many open wounds are starting to heal. Lucretia doesn't know how to retire. Magnus gets some post-surgery TLC. Taako rethinks burning that bridge completely.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus has a request, Lucretia makes it work.

The call came to her a week before the surgery date.

It had been a quarter to six in the morning. Light poured in from her window with gradients of colour resonating from the early morning sun, like strokes of watercolour against a deep blue canvas. Not that she’d been fully awake to appreciate the sunrise.

No, instead she sipped her coffee in the confines of her modest, but small kitchen.  A pen in the other hand, her sleepy eyes already scanning down appointments, board meetings, dinner plans in her agenda as she blinked away the morning bleariness that lingered.

Somehow, twenty years after the apocalypse, Lucretia still found herself as busy as she had been since that first fateful moment in the Starblaster, the first step of her new life mission. Quite frankly, it really was high time for her to retire. The planning was in the papers of what to do when she’d find someone to pass her position down to; a promising new Director to lead the Bureau of Benevolence into a greater, cleaner legacy.

Perhaps, she was putting off the actual choosing of a candidate. Perhaps, she didn’t quite know what to do with the idea of an abundance of time to relax and simply let the world run par for the course.

It may have been the reason why she still stood over an agenda piled high with countless obligations at the age of seventy-two.

She recoiled as a harsh blue light emanated under her nose, in time with a thrum of vibration flushed against her sternum. There was a brief split second of fuzzy interference as she clicked her stone of farspeech on.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Lucretia?” A joyful warmth bloomed inside of her chest at the sound of Magnus’s voice, the sound of his smile coming through in his greeting. She couldn’t help but smile back. “Yes, this sure is me.”

“Oh, duh, obviously,” he laughed quietly. “I know it’s dumb early right now, did I wake you up?”

“Not at all, though, you don’t sound quite all there yet either,” she noted. There was a slight throaty rasp that coated his words she could identify from anywhere as his ‘just rolled out of bed’ voice. “Is there something wrong?”

He hesitated. “Uh, kinda. Listen, Luce, could you do me a huge favour?”

“Of course, anything.” Her brows furrowed with concern, her pen halted in its writing. There was an uncomfortable beat of silence, until he spoke up again.

“So, you know how I’ve been planning this whole knee replacement thing for the past couple of months, right? It’s been pretty smooth sailing vis a vis planning and all.” His tone dipped into the territory of sheepish reluctance. “Except y’know after the surgery…

“I - Could you stay with me?”

She stood, mouth agape, but before she could respond, Magnus added, “I mean, Avi offered to help bring me back and forth between Raven’s Roost and Neverwinter, I got interns arranged ready to take care of the dogs in the few days that I’ll be gone but -”

“Magnus, I’m going to stop you right there.” He actually paused mid sentence. “Yes, definitely, I’ll stay with you.”

A great sigh of relief came from the other end of the line. “God, thank you. If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been Merle and he’s a little too enthusiastic to watch me in pain. The man is _still_ holding the damn arm thing against me.”

She laughed out loud at that, despite herself, the laugh of which caught her off guard. It was a horribly morbid experience to simply chuckle at, and yet it had felt like ages since she’s busted out a chuckle like that. Magnus snickered along with her.  

“Alright, alright, good to know,” he eventually replied, that smile still ever so present in his voice. “I hope I’m not keeping you too busy, am I?”

“Don’t even worry about it,” she assured. Two giant “X”s slashed in wet ink across the open pages of the week’s appointment filled schedule.

As they continued to chatter over their stones and figured out dates and details, she wrote silently in addendum:

 

_Actually figure a way out of these meetings later today._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is kind of a very specific and personal kind of surgery recovery fic, given that I am basing a lot of experience on both times my mom went under total knee replacement surgery and the recovery process that followed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Post-Op Experience.

There were two things she noticed when she arrived to his inpatient room.

The first being Magnus’s contorted expression of agony on his face, the way he writhed in his bed sheets as apparent sudden flares of pain shot up through his leg. He tried hard to keep his composure, yet she could see the frustration that only continued to build up, his entire posture alternated between overt tension and an oxymoron of forced relaxation in order to calm himself down. The second thing she noticed, as her gaze flickered over to the hand he was gripping on to: she wasn’t the only visitor to have arrived.

Taako looked up at her, his expression unreadable as she rushed to the chair opposite of him by Magnus’s bedside. “Hi, I’m here, I’m sorry, I wish I could’ve arrived earlier,” she got out in one rushed breath, as Magnus’s other hand gripped onto hers. He smiled at her, before his expression slipped into a grimace. She rubbed his hand in small soothing motions with her thumb.

“Nah, you’re actually right on time,” Taako drawled. That caught her attention, her eyes flicking up to him. But he continued to study Magnus’s face instead, rigid in his spot.

“By the time I got in here when they finally let visitors come through, Magnus here was fuckin’ dumb and high as kite.” He patted Magnus’s bicep sympathetically. “Couldn’t tell your dick apart from your own butthole, isn’t that right big guy?”

Despite the pain, a laugh bubbled out of Magnus. “It was some really good shit,” he mumbled. “Like, one of the two anaesthetics I’m not allergic to, apparently?” He shuddered. “Oofa doofa.”

“Oofa doofa indeed,” she echoed, her expression hardened in concern. She’d been lucky to not have any major complications with her knee replacements, both times around, let alone a severe allergic reaction when being put under.

“Let me know if you want some ice chips, Magnus,” Taako mumbled, his brows furrowed deeper. “It’s the only edible foodstuff in hospitals I can trust ‘em giving to you.”

“No, I don’t want any,” Magnus groaned. “Can’t you cast sleep on me, just a minute? C’mon that’s goottttttttaaa be like nothing to you.”

“Nuh-uh, doc said to keep you awake just a little while longer, nothing I can do about it,” Taako snorted in reply. His ear twitched in response. She knew he would’ve done it in a heartbeat.

Unsatisfied with that statement, Magnus pouted, his attention quickly directed towards Lucretia. “Luce, c’mon, you been through this, it can’t be that much trouble. Just one spell slot to burn, honestly!”

She stared back at him. His desperate expression struck an uncomfortably deep chord in her heart, the very same pain she could emphasise with. Hell, even her own healed joints ached from looking at him. With a sigh, she shook her head. “You know I can’t, and it’s a risk to mix medicine and magic like that. Taako and the doctors are right, they need you conscious to ensure their aren’t any other immediate complications.”

It was almost comical how fast his face fell from hope to bitter resignation. She gestured to the button that had fallen out of his hand and onto the bed, connected to his IV. “I do remember however, that If you press that, it’ll give you an extra drop or two from your IV every forty-five minutes or so.”

He immediately started to click on the button, eyeing his IV, and sure enough exactly one extra drip came out. Despite the time lock, he still continued to click insistently. Lucretia sighed, outstretching a hand and smoothed away the curls that were stuck to his sweaty forehead.

A lull of conversation fell over the room, only punctuated by Magnus’s restless movements and shaky attempts to stifle his pained grunts. She realised the onus to distract Magnus was to continue the conversation between her and… Taako. The elf himself, as much of a flashy cooking personality and beloved face of his own brand, was the reluctantly awkward wallflower in comparison to Lup’s social butterfly charm. _It takes one to know one_ , she thought, as he continued to pointedly look at Magnus, his lips pressed into a hard thin line.

She wondered how many long silences she’d continue to have with him.

“I’m glad to see you,” she spoke up, and internally cursed the way her voice cracked. “You always seem so busy these days.”

For the first time since she walked into the room, Taako met her eye.

It had been twenty years since the end of the apocalypse, and it was twenty years since the end of the decade she forced him to wander alone in. Lucretia didn’t expect to receive his complete forgiveness as much as he didn’t expect to accept her complete atonement. There were many a ruined dinner parties, excluded candlenights, sneered passive back and forth arguments, and pent up anger boiling bitterly in their stomachs for those first few years after.

(He accused her of ruining a century old romance with the man they both loved, and destroying the honest to god camaraderie they both had once shared. Her throat had tightened, as much as she wanted to scream how much she missed them, how much of a part of her heart - her family - they were, the words wouldn’t come.)  

It was on her seventieth birthday that they came to some sort of agreement. Taako arrived with a box of macaroons and a neatly printed recipe written on Taako brand stationary, tucked away into a similar Taako brand envelope. She recalled telling him months before that she couldn’t find her journal with the secret tip he had given her for his recipe.

She hadn’t been sure if it was the fact she was growing older that made him come around. She was closer to death in the most fleeting human way, the opportunity to reconcile while they were both alive now with an upcoming expiration date.

They spent the later half of the evening on the moon, drinking the cheapest box wine they could order in the Chug ‘n’ Squeeze, as the continent of Faerun drifted lazily hundreds of thousands of feet beneath them. He called her up on her stone a week later.

(There is a memory. An umbrastaff gripped in his shaking hand, a countdown layered with unbridled grief and indignant fury in his voice. She is kept awake in a cold sweat some nights. There have been fewer nights of this since the day of Story and Song, yet the memory was still reoccurring.)

And in this moment?

Taako’s eyes were heavy lidded, rimmed with dark circles, the muscles in his jaw wound up tight and tensed. He must’ve been waiting all day. Lucretia had only been in the room for a couple of minutes, and yet the sheer exhaustion that radiated from him made her feel all one hundred and seventy-two years of age.

He mirrored the same action of gently caressing Magnus’s hand that she had done, and nodded.

_This is not about us._

“I could say the same thing for you. But, you’re looking pretty spry for eighty-four, bubbale,” he chided, the corner of his lips quirked upward.

_Truce?_

“Seventy-two, you putz,” she corrected, her eyes soft and bright.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Magnus quietly let out a breath of relief. She ran her fingers through his hair, felt him finally relax under her touch.

“Say, I heard you’re having Angus teaching guest lectures now, between your school and Lucas’s.” Angus already written to her extensively about every detail of the opportunity.

She smiled.

“I’d love to hear all about it from you.”

_Truce._

* * *

 

A hand on her shoulder gently roused her from her sleep. She blinked once, twice, and uncurled her limbs from her cooped up position in the hospital recliner. While she’d tucked her jacket underneath her head as a makeshift pillow, the tendons in her neck still ached as she instinctively rubbed the muscles out. Taako squeezed her shoulder again. She blinked up at him, “What’s going on?”

There was no need for him to respond in words, only gestured to the scene in front of her. She took in the sight of Magnus getting coaxed out of bed, a tiefling woman in scrubs helping him do so with his healing leg, giving out firm instructions. A walker stood in front of him.

Magnus caught Lucretia’s eyes, and a giddy grin bloomed on his face. “You’re up just in time to see ol’ Magnus hobble on his own two feet!” He was no longer was in the excruciating pain she last remembered him in, though he still winced every so often as his surgery knee bent a little too much.

She yawned, and noted the darkness that had fallen over outside of the room’s window. “Was I really out for so long?”

The tiefling woman piped up, “Yes, both you and Mr. Taako here are _technically_ hours well overdue our usual visiting time slot, but,” she shrugged, her attention pulled back to Magnus for just a second as she adjusted him. “This is a private room, and I felt it’s kinda weird and awkward to kick out the folks who technically saved the entire world? So far, no complaints to this rule bending for y’all.”

“Hell yeah,” Taako grinned. “That’s how we _do_.” He still had his hand rested on Lucretia’s shoulder, not budging an inch as she covered it with her own. Her fingers tightened her grip on his hand, excitement bubbling inside of her as Magnus gripped the handles of his walker. It was a damn good choice to be in a private room, as Taako whooped and Lucretia clapped loudly in celebration as Magnus stood in front of them, on his two trembling legs with feet firmly planted on the ground. His eyes widened, glancing between his positioning and to the sight of his family beaming with pride for him.

The hospital worker continued to steady Magnus, but the small smile on her face was proof enough that the enthusiasm in the room was contagious. “Alright, Mr. Burnsides just like how we covered before, we’re going to walk you all around your bed, then get back in once we reach the opposite bedside, alright?”

“Sounds good to me,” he said, his hands wrapped tight around the walker. Step by step, he was slow and cautious. Lucretia couldn’t help but notice all the little ways in which he matured. While still as tall and broad just like he was at twenty in the beginning of their story, his posture had taken to a slight hunch, his muscles leaner in his limbs, but softer around his stomach. The splash of grey that first touched his temples in his mid-forties now had started to spread evenly in his closer crop of hair. Hell, the fact that he was taking each step so gingerly was completely unlike all the cycles she remembered, in which he tried to sprint with his broken leg held together in a taped up splint.

And of course, each fine smile line that creased his face as he laughed now. A face that despite everything, showed a lifetime of joy that only seemed to continue in age, so unlike the worried set of her own wrinkles that deepened in her grief.   

Lucretia felt the hand on her shoulder tighten, and as she glanced up at Taako with his melancholy smile, she could tell he was thinking the same thing. She used to be bitter and envious of his elven ageing as the years went on, thinking of how those twenty extra years were forced onto her shoulders in its fullest weight. Back in that century, it was “Team Humans”  who were the most unnerved by the seemingly ended process of ageing the cycles provided, something the elves never personally batted an eye at.

But now, while Barry managed to evade that obligation (albeit in the most risky and dangerous loophole possible), Magnus and Lucretia were old and grey and they _ached_. She could imagine from Taako’s eyes, the physical effects of their true age finally caught up to the both of them in the most fleeting amount of time. It was harder for her to be envious of that.

Magnus took a full two minutes to hobble around his bed, his weight forced mostly on his non-injured leg as he maneuvered with his walker. Taako whistled as a gratuitous flash of Burnside ass peeked out from his hospital gown, and Lucretia stifled a giggle as Magnus’s ears darkened a shade redder.

“God, am I just a piece of meat to the two of you,” he grumbled, no real protest in his voice, as he was helped back into bed. The tiefling woman left her business card to Lucretia introducing herself as Rieta, the physiotherapist, and excused herself from the room.    

Taako and Lucretia exchanged a smirk before stepping up to Magnus’s bedside. She rolled her eyes as Taako squatted down to Magnus’s eye level - _showoff_ \- and pressed a kiss to Magnus’s forehead. Lucretia remained standing awkwardly beside the two of them, hands clasped in front of her.

“You know you love it,” Taako teased, a snort caught in his throat as Magnus’s skin flushed an even deeper red.

It was Taako’s turn to roll his eyes at Lucretia’s stiff posture, nodding his head slightly, a silent invitation to join in. She unfolded her hands, stepping up beside Taako. Though she couldn’t exactly kneel down to his height, she extended her hand and cradled Magnus’s cheek in her palm. He leaned into her touch.

“And you know we love _you_ ,” she cooed, noting the way Taako’s gaze softened and how Magnus’s eyes shined as he shifted glances between the both of them. She hadn't realised the extent of which she yearned for those fond looks again, until all she could feel was that warmth, a love of which she tried so hard to protect from them and from herself. She laughed, though it sounded more like a choked sob, despite the unrestrained grin that split across her face. 

“Damn,” he whispered weakly. One of his hands laced fingers together with Taako’s, the other covering her own, the one that still held his cheek. “Good thing I must love the both of you too, or something.”

 

* * *

 

(In an event of rule bending getting pushed to its very limits, absolutely no one was surprised that the duo in Burnside’s room received clearance for a newly updated policy for overnight visitation.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up I love crying as I write and I want Lucretia and Taako return to that lonely gay wallflower friendship they used to have.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia makes tea, Lup drops by on her way to work, Taako is sick of Fantasy Tim Horton's.

It was always weird to be awake this early in a hospital, patient or not, Lucretia thought. Mainly due to the fact upon being woken up, there was no mistake in her memory of where exactly she was. The gentle hum of the ventilation system, the distant sounds of beeps and mechanical rushes of air. While she knew that the hospital staff were always on the clock, this floor seemed quieter than it should be.

Or perhaps not. If she strained her hearing, she could make out someone across the hall moaning out in elvish - _“May I have some water? Is there any water? My throat is parched”_ \- while someone else shushed them quietly, speaking too lowly for Lucretia to pick up.

She tapped her fingers gently against the arm of her chair as she waited for both the water in her kettle to heat up beside her and - as she stared down the empty chair opposite of hers - for Taako to return. When she awoke, there had been a note left on her lap. It detailed extensively that he’d gotten tired of meditating and wanted actual breakfast food that wasn’t the Fantasy Tim Horton’s attached to the gift shop on the first floor. All of the notes and excuses he’d make when he would leave had to be that specific. It’s hard not to read into that.

A snore cut through her observations. She glanced back at the only other occupant in the room, who slept soundly on his hospital bed. Magnus had a hard time falling asleep the night before and stayed up well past midnight until he finally settled into rest. What might not have helped was in order to create some white noise, Lucretia and Taako tried to talk casually on a neutral topic. Unfortunately for Magnus, said topic ended up devolving into an hour long compilation of “dumb things Magnus ate that he shouldn’t have” of which he tried to defend himself from their ribbing.

Lucretia stifled her laugh at the memory by biting down on her bottom lip, as steam snaked its way out of her kettle. She rifled through her bag, setting out a teapot, the paper cups she received from nurse’s office, and a small box of tea Davenport had mailed out to her. She wasn’t quite sure what exactly what kind of plant it was from or the region he’d obtained it, but it was sharp and had just the right amount of sweetness he knew she enjoyed. She fiddled with the jar, placing a bag inside the pot, and grabbed the kettle once she could hear the telltale whistle of water boiling.

“Damn, loverboy looks like shit, doesn’t he?”

The kettle nearly slipped out of Lucretia’s hands, the spout knocking ungracefully against her teapot as hot water pooled on the portable bedside table, while Lup’s voice filtered in through a rift in spacetime. Not long afterwards, the elf herself popped her head through as she stepped in the room. Though still adorned in her working reaper’s robes, thankfully Lup had the sense to stay flesh faced in a hospital.

Lup smirked as she closed the rift behind her, her expression turned somewhat apologetic as she surveyed the aforementioned tea incident that Lucretia hastily wiped up. “Sorry Lucy, forgot it’s getting harder for you to hear when I’m gonna be dropping in via work emissary rift bullshit,” she whispered. “Supposed to be doing a little recon in this area right now, but hope I’m not too late to this early morning tea scene you got going on.”

Lucretia shook her head, setting the pot aside to let the tea steep, “Oh, not at all.” She plucked three cups from the stack, a little self conscious of the fact she hadn’t brought her own set from home. Then again, even in the hospital, she couldn’t risk the damage. She peered curiously at Lup, who’d taken over Taako’s chair and lounged about. “Couldn’t you have come in here through the main entrance?”

“God, you know me, where’s the sex appeal in that? Nothing quite says drama than bustin’ through an interdimensional portal in full reaping coordination.” Lup thought considerately for a moment, then snorted. “Well, not like the man of the hour is even awake to appreciate my fuckin’ excellent gestures of hospitality.”

“If you’d like, you can pull a do-over once Magnus starts to wake up again,” Lucretia offered, pouring a cup for Lup and one for herself. She hesitated, and then poured a third cup for Taako. If her calculations were running right, he should be returning soon enough for the tea to cool right to the temperature he liked. If not, well, nothing a quick spell couldn’t fix.

Lup raised a brow at that gesture, looking over the rim of her drink back at Lucretia while she sipped. “Taako’s here, right?”

Lucretia tapped a finger on Taako’s note. “Yes. He wanted to grab breakfast.”

They both sipped their tea.

“He was out before you woke up.” Lup said this as a statement, rather than a question.

Lucretia nodded. Lup also nodded back, clicked her tongue against her teeth as she looked thoughtfully out of the room, another weak moan across the hall asking blindly for water.

It seemed harder to tell what Lup was thinking, ever since the very moment she’d sprung free from the umbrastaff. Of course, there were plenty of times she’d freely give out her opinion and then some more to flavour, prompted or not. That certainly never changed. But it was the quiet pause between words in which Lucretia could see her thinking, compartmentalising and reminiscent in her thoughts alone. She’d look so much like Taako when she would do so.

Lup glimpsed back at Lucretia, pulled from her thoughts as she felt Lucretia’s fingers interlace with her own. She grasped back, running the smooth pad of her thumb over the stiff and wrinkled skin of Lucretia’s knuckle.

“We talked last night,” Lucretia whispered, her other hand trembling as she took another sip of her tea. “It wasn’t a long conversation, once we both realised that Magnus had fallen asleep and that we could… drop the pretense that everything was completely fine.”

Her vision blurred, so much so she hadn’t seen Lup reach over and gently pluck the paper cup from her shaking hand until Lucretia blinked and found it was gone, set on the table. Her jaw clenched. “Lup, I don’t know how to go back to what we had. We’re getting better, I think, but I still don’t know where to begin and if he still wants to and -”

“Hey now, Lucy, babe,” Lup tutted, taking both of Lucretia’s hands in her own. “What we’re not gonna do today is self-deprecate and act like there’s no hope for tomorrow, I’m still holding you both to that promise.”

Lucretia opened her mouth to reply, but Lup held up a finger. “I remembered everything that had happened, had a lot of time to reflect on it in that stupid fucking umbrella.

“Annnd I _know_ you don’t agree with me, I know Taako doesn’t either, but I don’t want to hear it. I got some serious faith in the two of you.” Lup pulled a face. “God, I almost just said ‘And in Pan too’. I swear, Merle better not stealth convert me subconsciously from the gig I got with Mama Bird.”

“Mama Bird?”

A smile pulled onto Lucretia’s lips, to which Lup rolled her eyes, and huffed, “One, don’t distract me from the subject at hand, two, everyone loves my nicknames, Boss Mama included.”

“Lotta mom based nicknames for your boss, huh?” The two women shifted their attention to the doorway, where a yawning Taako leaned up against the doorframe. He had one hand on a white cardboard box held tight to his side, and with his own takeout cup of coffee in his other hand. Lucretia should’ve considered he’d buy his own drink while he was out.

Lup narrowed her eyes at her brother, her head cocked to the side as she replied, “You come in here and try to kinkshame me at this hour?”

“Only if the shoe fits, Lulu.”

“Mm-mm. Don’t even go there.”

He raised his full hands up defensively as she bristled at the use of her nickname, her ear twitched in annoyance. Lucretia hid her smile behind a sip of her tea, yet, some of that teasing joy must have reached her eyes, as Lup caught it in a glance. “Really? You too, Lucy?”

“I’m not saying anything other than there’s nothing about your fantasies for you to be ashamed of, dear.”

That pulled a snort from Taako, a pleasant surprise of a reaction which pleased Lucretia to no end. What quickly followed was the realisation that he could’ve heard a lot more than this nickname goof, which caused Lucretia to sit up straighter. She gestured to his box, “Um, what did you get?”

“Eh, there isn’t much open this early, almost had to settle for Fantasy Tim’s, but I remembered where Merle gets his diabetic cheat day sweets,” he admitted, settling his stuff on the table, and opened the box to reveal rows of rolls of aromatic sweetbread and rice cakes, topped with sprinkled granulated sugar. “He says it’s for the kids but let’s Zone of Truth his ass on that.”

Jokes aside, Lucretia could hear the tightness in his voice and felt the anxiety cloud over her thoughts. How much of the conversation did he exactly hear before he walked in on the two of them.

“I made tea,” Lucretia blurted, just to say anything, gesturing to the cup she had prepared for him. “While we were waiting for you to come back.”

Taako took a seat at the foot of Magnus’ bed, casting a glance at the other man before returning his attention back to Lucretia, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “I figured.” He held up his takeout cup up before taking a sip. “But, I’m good here, actually.”

 

( _“This is what you wanted, right?” Taako said, as he slid back in his seat, giving Magnus one last squeeze on his shoulder before crossing his arms. When he sees the uncertain expression on her face, he elaborates, gesticulating vaguely. “Y’know. An ‘after the bullshit of that century was all said and done.’ An epilogue.”_

_She pauses. “...Of course.” She drops her clasped  hands on her lap. “Don’t we all?”_

_Taako hums affirmatively in response, and crosses his legs, propping his feet up against the railing of Magnus’s bedside._

_“I guess,” he says slowly, pausing.“Can I be real with you on something, ‘Creesh?”_

_“I doubt you’d be any other way.”_

_“Fair point.” Taako cocks his head back, regarding her with an inscrutable, neutral glance. “It’s really inconvenient for me to keep hating you.”_

_“Inconvenient.” She does not know what to say to that._

_He huffs quietly, his face scrunched up, and mouth agape as he finds his words. “Like, twenty years now, and how many times have we re-hashed this discussion vis a vis how you fucked us over and what it did to us? It’s really annoying to keep thinking about whenever we’re in a room together.”_

_Her fingernails dig into the flesh of her hands, her throat tight as she replies, “I can’t say I’ve ever imagined I could be thought of as… just annoying and inconvenient in your mind ever again, given that, yes, I am cause to having ruined your life and the lives of our family.”_

_“First of all, Lucy, don’t assume you know what I think of you,” Taako sneered, his arms crossing again, as though restraining himself from making a move. “You had been annoying and inconvenient to me the moment you took my will away, and you sure the fuck maintained being annoying and inconvenient after the fact._

_“And the MOST annoying and inconvenient thing is I’m here watching my old boyfriend getting to become a wrinkly old man with shitty knees, sitting next to his old girlfriend, who used to be one of my best fuckin’ friends in all planar systems we’ve been in, and there’s nowhere else I’d fuckin rather be right now!”_

_Taako sets his head in his hands, jabbing two fingers against his temples, rubbing them in slow, deliberate circles. Lucretia slackens the grip on her hands, before she can puncture and break blood through her skin. She places one hand on Magnus’ slumbering chest, and glances over to Taako, eyeing his exhausted frame._

_“There are so many places you would rather be right now.”_

_“Obviously!” He moans, burying his face into his palms. “I hate you that you know me so well.”_

_“Sometimes, I hate that I do so, too.” she says softly. “I think I always knew that you would hate me the most for what I did. I know you said not to assume, but I’ve always felt we were more similar than we are different, but our differences were so fundamentally opposing.”_

_She cards her fingers through Magnus’ hair in featherlight touches, “I don’t want to re-hash the discussion any longer than you do. Not necessarily because I think it’s annoying, but rather, there’s only so many times I can keep explaining myself, just to come to the same conclusions over and over again._

_“There’s an extent to which I can understand why you’d let everything and everyone turn to dust for the sake of what’s the most important to you. And there’s an extent as to understanding why I’d sacrifice you all, and myself, in order to save everybody else.”_

_“Yeah. If only your plan had worked to justify that,” Taako mumbled._

_Lucretia bit down on her tongue._

_Taako propped his chin onto his hand, looking at her with heavy lidded eyes, puffy and pink._

_“But here we are.”)_

 

“Taako,” Lup warns, her voice deceptively light and her grip on Lucretia’s hand firm and grounding as she stared down Taako. Her very presence was another measure of civility.

Something in Taako’s glare wavered at Lup’s judgement, a somewhat resignation to back out from this potential fight. It’s a testament to the twenty years of trying to figure out their places in each others lives that their interactions now don’t end in an all out emotional brawl.

Lucretia sits up straighter, quickly saying, “It’s okay, thank you for buying food, Taako. I’m sure Magnus will appreciate it when he wakes up.”

He eyes Lucretia pointedly before gesturing to the box, “I did figure you’d be making tea. Also figured you’d want something that would pair well with it too.”

Lucretia smiles softly. “Thank you for your consideration, Taako.”

She can spot the twitch of a grin on Taako’s face, but he waves his hands dismisively. He takes a bite out of a roll, speaking between chews, “Yeah, yeah, Taako’s the best, it’s how he do. Now, when the hell is Magnus gonna wake up?”

He sticks his partially eaten ensaymada under Magnus’s nose, attempting to waft the aroma to stir him from his slumber. “If us talkin’ about our feelings and shit doesn’t rouse him, you figured one of these bad boys will.”

“Perhaps he isn’t hungry,” Lucretia offers. At the same time, across the hall rings out the same wail asking for water. The three of them pause at once, turning in time to see a bright purple flash emanate for a split second out of the room.

“Well,” says Lup, smoothing her robes out as she stands, rolling out her neck as her face quickly drops into its bony facade. “Looks like it’s time to report to Mama Bird about this recon, huh?”

She downs the last of her tea, patting Lucretia on the shoulder to ensure, no, there’s no need to roll for initiative on this one. Lup’s scythe materialises in her hand as she strides out of the room, poking her arm back in just to shut the door behind her.

Another noise draws Taako and Lucretia’s attention from the very opposite direction. A dazed and sleepy Magnus stretches his arms above his head, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“I thought I heard Lup,” Magnus yawns, blinking as he plucks the ensaymada from Taako’s stilled hand.

Taako and Lucretia exchange a look.

(Outside, Lucretia can hear Lup huff _“By the Raven Queen’s doctrine: necromancy is_ not _considered an alternative to late-term healing, Charles.”)_

“You just missed her,” they both chime.


End file.
